Emerald City Comicon 2012 Con Report

Whoo! It's that time of year again! ECCC '12 was a great success in a lot of ways, though I do have to admit I was exhausted by the end of it. I'm usually the one who's ready and raring for a whole 'nother three or four days extra, but by the end of comicon I was really ready for some sleep-time. Part of that may have to do with last minute work and being so busy but I'm gonna blame it all on these puppies.

Holy God what was I thinking???

There are a few reasons why I thought it was acceptable to wear heels to Comicon. Firstly, there's a lot less walking and a lot more panel-sitting at ECCC, versus anime cons. The day prior I had done almost nothing but sit, of course I had bound my boobs down and sitting was tortuously painful on my ribs; "No worries" I thought, tomorrow this will be so blissful. Of course, the day I wore this costume was the day that I decided it was a bright idea to stand in a line for three hours. Luckily comicon's law regarding the wearing of shoes is far more lax than other conventions I've been to in the past, and I spent most of that line standing around in my muppet socks (which, weirdly got the most compliments out of anything I did that weekend. I think this might be a tad depressing).

SO. Comicon this year was great. There were great guests (most of whose panels I missed) and we were accompanied by Chase and Cassi, which was fun. Tobi and I were extremely busy and I was forced to break my cardinal costuming rule of not repeating costumes at the same convention, particularly two years in a row. It was still a great time though. The new costume that we debuted were very very fun, and, perhaps most notably, Wil Wheaton signed our stuffed rabbit.

Friday

Nothing much was scheduled for Friday this year. There were no celebrity guest panels, or anything we were real desperate to see. Nobody was really dressed up and attendance was pretty low. Con was only open for a couple of hours, but Cassi and Chase were excited to experience their first Comicon and had everything scheduled to the nines.

We all went as Princess peaches, Toad duo, and Moogle. Since they were all slightly interpretive I choose to believe that it's "Nintendo Mascot's go to High School".

Cassi was the cute girl that you find in the library

Chase was the pretty girl

Tobi and I were....well...we need no explanation.

TOAD. The princess is not in your castle.

These costumes have all been discussed before on this blog and aren't really new. We wore them to Kumoricon '10 I believe and they were fun. We all got a fair amount of attention, mostly due to Tobi's huge head. The best response was definitely from this one guy, who came running up, asked us to pose and snapped a picture. I had been excusing myself from some pictures, since I was a different universe, but I hopped in on this one, just for fun.
Me (grinning at Tobi): I photobombed.
Guy (very excited): AWESOME! I work for Nintendo, they're gonna love this at the office.
Me: ...
Me: Whoops. I really did photobomb...

I can't help but imagine the great expressions back the Nintendo office.
"Wow, these are great!"
"What a minute..."
"DAMN YOU SQUARE ENIX"

After we farted around for a while, we went into a Stand-up Nerd Comedy panel that was great. The first comic was hilarious, but I'm gonna put money down that the best part was the movie that was playing when we were let into the panel room. ECCC was the proud premiere of Scy-fy's "Seattle Storm" movie, which was playing when we were let into the panel room half an hour early. The movie was supposed to be emotional and thrilling, but the whole piece was so cliche (Tornadoes attack the city, actors fail to realize there are green screen special effects going on behind them, and the scientist who can save the world has a German accent) and the timing so unintentionally hilarious, that the crowd was roaring with laughter. It was fantastic.

The best part of the whole night though was the voice actor's panel. Various famous voice actors such as Tara strong of My Little Ponies, and Teen Titans; Maurice LeMarche and Rob Paulson of Pinky and the Brain; and so on; doing various famous movie scenes as their characters. It was fantastically hilarious and very cool to get to see the voice actors actually "doing" the voices. I'm a terrible voice actor, though I'd like to learn, and it was very cool to watch professionals at work.

Weirdly enough, even though this was the shortest day, it was probably the longest we stayed out, because we were all still awake. We had to park in some odd parking area, due to the garages being full, but it afforded some cool photo opportunities.

 Saturday

Saturday, again, regarded as the "Big Day" of conventions, was, well, it was insane. The convention sold out capacity and was, consequently, absolutely packed to the rafters with nerds. Seriously.
The problem with this was that, Emerald City Comicon, a normally quiet and relaxed convention, was not prepared for such madness and there was gridlock in all regions normally reserved for picture taking.

Only Spidy was given leeway, but then...wouldn't you?

No merch for you Mummy...

Tobi and I revisited our Empty Children costumes from last year, which was good fun, though not as gratifying as no large men cried at the sight of us. Though we did inadvertently chase a group of panicked teenage girls through the very crowded dealers hall.One of the only downsides was that the intricate wax hand wounds I made that morning fell apart before the day had hardly even started. But they actually came across pretty good in pictures regardless, so, hey, live and learn. For the most part I think the cheap costume wax, which I used last minute out of my make up box, was too soft and I needed to finish it with some latex to hold it on, but I ran out of time. The next time I do these guys, I'd like to get some nice wounds that will hold up to the constant motion of hand movements without leaving a trail of gore on the convention floor.

It was all still great fun though. We were followed almost continuously by a chorus of "mummy"s as we passed by groups of nerds. We also were hounded by several groups of (mostly girl) whovians for pictures.

Hey wait a minute there....

The most important thing though was that there were hundreds of awesome costumes all over the place and more panels and celebrity talks to go to than I could shake a stick at. We attended voice acting panels, George Takei, and Wil Wheaton to name a few and we spotted power rangers, weeping angels and, of course, the obligatory:

Adam WEEEEESSSTTTT

Empty children are always fun costumes to wear, easy to put on, and most of all, typically comfortable. I ran into problems this year though in that I decided to bind. I've bound before (binding being the act of flattening one's boobs with binder shirts, or, my preferred method, ace bandages), and I've gotten rather good at it. I got my chest flat, decide being a rather well endowed lady, and for most of the day I was actually pretty comfortable. It's a real art to get boobs bound flat without inhibiting your ability to breath. However this time, for some reason, the strain on my ribs made my back extremely sore. I had trouble sitting for long periods, which spelled trouble for all the panels we were planning to attend. Luckily I discovered that I could stand sitting so long as my arms were spread out; so I employed the yawn-and-stretch method and managed to keep my boobs flat without snapping a vertebra. But, man oh man, I must say, there is nothing like tearing off those ace bandages at the end of a long day.
BOOBS BE FREEEEE!!!

Sunday

Sunday was "Harvey Day" for us. Harvey, for those of you who don't read my my other blog; Tobi and I have a very special stuffed rabbit named Harvey, who travels with us whenever we go any place interesting or worth noting. This year we decided it was time to take Harvey to ECCC. However, low on time, and at a loss for costumes; Tobi came up with a great plan. Harvey, already appropriately named, would take on the role of Two-Face whom I had played in previous convention appearances, and Tobi and I would play his Sugar and Spice (a la Batman Forever).

Making Harvey's costume was great fun. I did it in much the same way that I made my own, and (obviously) with mostly the same styling. The orange shirt fabric was different from the stuff I used, which I had specially dyed and I was out of; but I had just enough of the other two materials, and managed to pick up some really cool orange tiger stripe at Walmart of all places.

fear me.

Luckily Harvey is roughly the size of an average infant, so I got some nice suit clothes from the value village and built the Big Bad Harv' half off of generalized approximations of the fabric. Likewise, with his facial covering I used his face to make a pattern (similarly to how I made the cthulu plush) and made a simple face shape that I could lightly stitch on without damaging Harvey's stunningly good looks. The fabric for his face was probably the hardest part, as for some reason (I can't imagine why) purple fur isn't a popular fabric in most shops. However, Walmart to the rescue again! Walmart was selling a variety of horrible dorm accessories in a variety of "oh-god-my-eyes" colour; including a bright purple bathmat. Cheaply made, the bathmat rubberize bottom was easy to tear off and, win! Purple fur fabric acquired.

Tobi opted to dress up as Sugar, the 'good' side of two-faces floozy minions. I got to be Spice. Tobi utilized Cassi's old moogle dress plus some feathers and a literal butt-ton of glitter and made a very beautiful, and classy Sugar to sit by Harvey's side. I, as spice, picked up an old jail-bait style dress, along with a red frilly shirt I had discarded from my original Two-face design and a corset that we re-purposed, to make a pretty fun Spice costume. It was very, very fun. We weren't super recognizable, but we got photographed several times even without people knowing who we were, and when they did...oh man, there was some excitement.

Two-face and Big Bad Bunny; we asked for his picture before he had the chance to realize what we were, but then we handed him the bunny and he had to run off and show his girlfriend. Far too adorable.

Of course the problem this day was that we all, all of us decided that heels were a good idea; despite knowledge that heels and conventions don't make good bedfellows. I was bright enough to bring a nice pair of flats that I switched into partway through the day when my feet just couldn't take any more.

The irony of this was that today was the day when I would be doing the most standing. Tobi and I opted to try and get Harvey signed by Wil Wheaton, who, graciously, doesn't charge for signatures. However, everyone had this same idea, and the line was unbelievably crowded. We waited for some 3 hours before being some of the last people to make it all the way through. We both ended up taking off our heels and enjoyed the lax shoe rules present at ECCC.

Totally worth it.

Ultimately, these costumes where excellent fun, and I think they looked great. Even if they did get glitter all over my house, (it's still there), and even if they were mostly last minute and even a tad stressful at moments. I always appreciate seeing a good costume come together and that will always outweigh any stress that may or may not going into making them. Sometimes it's the last minute details that really bring a piece together. The jail bait dress I wore had the tendency to climb skyward, so I added in the side frill, and some poof on the sleeves to keep the outfit more comfortable; I added the long black sleeve to keep the cuff from biting into my arms, and frilly underpants to retain some dignity, and those were some of my favorite details. I have a feeling these costumes will come back in the future; they were just too fun.

LESSONS?

1. Always, always bring backups if you think some part of a costume is going to bug you. Thinking ahead and bringing flats saved my day on Sunday when my heels became unbearable. I could always change back into the heels for pictures.

2. Take advantage of the things Conventions offer you; if someone you really like is offering free signatures, go for it! Or don't. Conventions are supposed to be fun! There should never be anything you have to do or have to see. If the line looks unbelievable, try for it next year.

3. Always do things early if you know you want them. Don't wait for the last day when everyone is going to decide they want a signature or a piece of merchandise, or a souvenir of some kind. Most people wait until the last day to get stuff, and it can make the dealers hall and the signature/picture room unbearable. If you do wait to the last day, make sure you know exactly what you want and where it is. The crowds can be stifling and it's a lot better than trying to browse among the herd.

4. I don't have a lot of fun repeating costumes, they don't get the same reception, and they aren't as exciting for me. But sometimes circumstances necessitate that you repeat. However, I learned, that I really don't enjoy it much at all. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy Con, but costumes are very important to me. I'll never begrudge others who want to repeat, but I will always continue to try and get some new stuff out there. It's how I roll.

5. Accessories are everything.
6. Sometimes, particularly at Comic conventions more than Anime; people will give you cards when they take your picture and urge you to visit their site for the image. Digging through all the pictures can actually be really fun, but it's a great idea to write what costume the card is connected to so you know which of your costumes you are looking for when you visit the site.

7. Next year will be better!

...

8. BOOBS BE FREE


Extra feature
Winner of the 2012 Best Costume Award for this nonsense blog goes to...

The Extremely Dispassionate Borg Cube!

He's 3-dimensional! He lights up! He's extremely dispassionate! He has no arms!
HE'S THE BORG